Posted on 10/13/2002 5:16:31 PM PDT by paltz
ON September 30, I wrote a column where I recounted a story my friend Jack Burditt told me. He had been to a punk rock concert in Los Angeles with his teenage daughter and, while there, one of the punk bands had said some nasty things about President Bush and his Iraq policy. The crowd, Jack told me, promptly booed them. Jack said that the band in question was the Buzzcocks.
The Buzzcocks now deny having said anything about President Bush. I'm happy to take them at their word. I spoke to Jack and he spoke to his daughter and she says it wasn't the Buzzcocks, that it was another band (I'm not going to tell you who she thinks it was, not until we know for sure). We've called radio, TV stations, and newspapers that covered the concert, but right now no one has an answer to the question of which band it was. As for my friend Jack--he's a sensible adult and he took notes at the concert. If he got the band wrong, well, once you're over a certain age I suppose, they all start to sound alike.
My apologies to the Buzzcocks for what was an honest mistake. We can all count it as more good news that they took offense at having anti-Bush sentiments ascribed to them. Bully for the Buzzcocks, I shall have to go out and buy their latest album in support, even though I'm guessing chubby, bald guys are not their target demographic. (Actually, it's not available in stores--you can only get it online, here.)
So: Who was the band that said, "F--- George Bush" and started the astonishing reaction of boos from the audience? I don't know for sure right now, but I promise to get to the bottom of it.
Larry Miller is a contributing humorist to The Daily Standard and a writer, actor, and comedian living in Los Angeles.
http://www.supersphere.com/Zinetropa/Article.html?ID=Scram&NAME=Ramone
MARGARET: I wanted to ask you about your politics.
JOHNNY: Oh?
MARGARET: WeLL the reason I'm asking is a lot of my friends who are punk rock are right wing.
JOHNNY: They are? Okay.
MARGARET: It seemed like punk rock is a right wing phenomena, and I've heard you've caught slack for some of your opinions
JOHNNY: Right-wing opinions?
MARGARET: Yeah
JOHNNY: Oh, okay. I found it very strange, because here you have the hippie movement which is left-wing. Punks, you identify them if you go back to the fifties and sixities as a bunch of greasers who are more right-wing and anti-peace demonstrations and that kinda stuff. Then suddenly in the punk rock movement you start having these left-wing kids who are really hippies who have become punks but are still really hippies.
MARGARET: P.C. people. McLaren was a lefty.
JOHNNY: He was, you're right The other guys I don't get. Steve Jones doesn't seem to care one way or the other. He was just looking for girls.
KIM: Nothing wrong with that
JOHNNY: If that's all your life about, I guess there's something wrong with that. I don't know. Ramones fans always seem to be okay. They know I'm that way and I think a lot of the Ramones fans are sort of in agreement with me. Those are the only kids I have contact with. I don't talk to any of those punks on the street.
MARGARET: Wearing Crass shirts and begging for money
JOHNNY: Yeah, that's all hippies. Same thing as was going on in the late sixties. To me, I think punk should be right wing. That's how I see it The left wing is trying to destroy America by giving handouts to everyone and making everyone dependent on them. They only care about the voter base. They don't really care about anything else. They don't care about anyone. If they can get illegal aliens to become able to vote by motor registration, they will. They're illegal aliens! They don't even belong in the country, let alone voting. It's just to keep their base of voters. Is it best for America? It's not best for America.
This Just In . . .
An update on the punk rock festival that spawned the story that spawned the denial that spawned the correction.
by Larry Miller
10/10/2002 4:50:00 PM
A GREAT GUY and publicist I work with, Michael Hansen, tracked down the manager of blink-182. They were the band who said all those things about President Bush and his Iraqi policies. Their manager confirmed that they said them and, also, that this was followed by huge boos, which didn't upset the band at all. I was thrilled to hear that. I mean, I don't make anything up for these columns. (Who would ever have to, for God's sake, with the daily pageant of life in our country?) And I knew my friend, Jack, who told me the story initially, wouldn't make it up, either. Hell, he didn't even want to be there in the first place, he was just chaperoning his daughter to make sure she didn't blow all her money at the Ecstasy concession.
Hansen mentioned that there was also another tiny, little bit of confirmation on the question: IT'S IN THIS MONTH'S ROLLING STONE. No kidding. The October issue, on the stands now, has a big piece, "Backstage with blink-182." Their reporter was even at the concert with them on the fourteenth of September, the one I wrote about, and it's in the piece, "F--- you, George Bush," and all sorts of predictably cheerful epithets. Isn't that weird? Here I am trying to track down every popcorn vendor and security guard in Southern California who might've been at the concert that night, and the whole thing is in print on every stand in America. Oh, well.
Anyway, it's still in order for me to say, again, to Buzzcocks, I'm sorry I said it was you. Before this, I didn't know who you were, and, chances are, you don't know who I am. But we're both in the same business, and it's a funny business, and, trust me, you never know, we might find ourselves working together on something someday, on stage, or TV, or film. If we do, fellas, after work, first one's on me. Second one, too. I'll bet we have more in common than most folks would think.
Now I'm going to rework the article with the correct info.
By the way, from the third drink on? It's every man for himself.
The Ramones, however, are pretty cool even though Joey Ramone was a liberal.
Johnny Ramone
I guess stomping hippies is a "right wing" thing.
Skrewdriver, Agnostic Front, Warzone, Stormtroopers of Death, and many others come to mind.
I say this as a fan of the left-wind bands actually - I just think they are in general more creative and better musicians.
Also I find the "white power" fan base of most of the rightwing bands a bit irriritating.
But there is no sense in pretending that punk is leftwing, it might have been originally but no longer since the mid-1980s.
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